title: Three-dimensional culture may promote cell reprogramming.
abstract: Stem cells reside in stem cells niches, which maintain the balance of self-renewal and differentiation of stem cells. In stem cell niches, cell-cell, cell-extracellular matrix interactions and diffusible signals are important elements. However, another pivotal element is that localized and diffusible signals are all organized as three-dimensional (3-D) structures, which is easily neglected by in vitro cell biology research. Under 3-D culture conditions, the morphology of cells exhibited differently from cultured in traditional two-dimensional (2-D) conditions. Under 3-D culture conditions, the self-renewal and pluripotency of neural stem cells (NSCs) and bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) were enhanced compared with culturing under 2-D conditions. 3-D cultures could change the transcriptional profile of NSCs compared with 2-D cultures. We hypothesized that 3-D cultures could reprogram mature cells such as fibroblasts to an immature state, like the pluripotent stem cells. The primary results indicated that several ES marker genes were upregulated by 3-D cultures. Though further experiments are needed, this work may provide a method of reprogramming mature cells without gene modifications.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Molecular Developmental Biology, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Jin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Han
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Guanzheng
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.forename: Bin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Dai
authors.forename: Xiujie
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Jianwu
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dai
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D018929:Cell Culture Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D065150:Cellular Reprogramming / Q000187:drug effects; D003094:Collagen / Q000494:pharmacology; D004622:Embryo, Mammalian / Q000166:cytology; D005347:Fibroblasts / Q000166:cytology / Q000187:drug effects / Q000648:ultrastructure; D057026:Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology / Q000187:drug effects / Q000378:metabolism; D051379:Mice; D058953:Neural Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology / Q000187:drug effects / Q000378:metabolism; D059467:Transcriptome / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D003094:Collagen
keywords: reprogramming; stem cell niches; stem cells; stemness; three-dimensional culture